During most of my 1994 summer I will be on the road with my two bands, Endpoint and Guilt. For the first seven weeks I will be with Endpoint, touring with local heroes Falling Forward and New York's Shift on the East Coast for three-and-a-half weeks and with Indianapolis' Split Lip on the West Coast for three-and-a-half weeks. Upon returning, I will embark on a three-week tour with Guilt and Louisville's Enkindel. My scene reports for the summer will actually be a tour diary, with an occasional comparison of the Louisville scene to the rest of the cities in America. But before I begin talking about the tour I should write about the events I was in town to witness.

Drinking Woman has released a seven-inch on Three Little Girls Records, a local label that released the frst Rodan single. Falling Forward's new compact disc has been selling wonderfully and rumor has it that Victory Records, a large, independent label based in Chicago, is interested in signing them.

Metroschifter has a new record in the works.

Slamdek and ear X-lacy have collaborated and released Endpoint's frst release, if the spirits are willing, on compact disc. Do not try to purchase this CD at any stores other than ear X-racy this summer because they have exclusive distribution rights to the release for three months.

Speaking of record stores, Better Days has opened a new section in their business called "The Underground" which specializes in underground music.

Initial Records, from Detroit, has agreed to release an Enkindel seven-inch at the end of the summer.

Avail came to Louisville, with Guilt and Tempt opening, to empty out the pockets of all of the Avail-hungry fans. About six hundred people attended the show. Luckily it was a very pleasant day; Cliffhangers can be a drag when it rains. Cliffhangers has decided not to continue doing all-ages shows.

In fact, several of the scheduled shows have been canceled or moved to a new location.

[Cliffhangers has since closed. — Editor.] I hear that the shows might move to the upstairs at Louisville Gardens. This has good and bad qualities. The good quality is that the capacity level is high. The bad quality is that people will have to buy tickets at the door to avoid a TicketMaster fee.

Okay, it is now time for me to move on to the frst part of the tour.

I am in Philadelphia, Pa., right now, because we have a day off. The first week of the tour was spent mainly in the Midwest and the Northeast. The Midwest is a proft margin all over. We had no problems there, considering that both Endpoint and Falling Forward have both toured the Midwest extensively. The frst eastern city that we played that I really felt the bands made an impact in was Burlington, Vt., mainly because none of the bands touring had ever played this city. It was a great show; after each band played the kids would run to the back of the club and buy a record and a shirt. It was almost like they had never seen a live band before.

After Vermont we moved on to Boston. The city was a bit of a letdown for me, not because' of Endpoint, but because Falling Forward played a fantastic set and the people did not pay attention. The East is good for Endpoint; the kids really seem to like the band, especially our singer Rob. And I think it is safe to say that Endpoint really likes the people we play for. We played a couple of more cities and then we moved to New York City.

What can I say except the city of one million smells lives up to its nickname; and all of the smells stink. I do not much care for the city, even if the show went incredibly. Falling Forward really made an impression on the crowd. Endpoint played a good set, but my guitar keep slipping out of tune, so I was a little hesitant about the overwhelming crowd response. The famous hard-core record producer Don Fury, who is most famous for producing bands like Agnostic Front, Youth of Today and Quicksand, told Falling Forward he would like to work with them.

Well, that is it for the tour thus far, but I will be returning next month to tell more about Louisville on the road.